Analysis: What's the real cost of secondary ticketing?
Jun 10, 2016

D2C firm Music Glue’s CEO Mark Meharry has been talking to Music Ally about his belief that the secondary-ticketing market needs to be reined in.

“Live Nation’s secondary ticketing revenue, as far as I can see, in 2013 was $400m; in 2014 it was $900m; and in 2015 it was $1.2bn.Good Lord! StubHub in 2015 made $1.06bn. The IFPI reports that the total trade revenue from music subscriptions last year was only $1.6bn,” said Meharry in an interview for the latest Music Ally Report.

“So for two companies, Live Nation and StubHub, the combined revenues from secondary ticketing last year were $2.6bn while subscription was only $1.6bn – and yet all we ever talk about in the trade press is, ‘Spotify this, YouTube that and how it’s not fair we are not getting enough money from these various services.’ Yet there are two companies operating away and earning a bloody fortune – and we are sitting by and watching it happen.”

Read the full feature, including contributions from Mumford & Sons’ manager, Dice, Songkick and StubHub...